you, sister.’
‘Adélaïde … I am Sister Adélaïde, in charge of the kitchens and of meals. Hush! Do not thank me. You know I should not be here, and I wasn’t told to come – it was a simple oversight. I wished to make amends, that is all. I deserve no thanks. And yet I am happy to offer you these humble provisions – this rye bread, black but very nourishing, a bottle of our own cider – you’ll find it delicious – a goat’s cheese, some fruit and a big slice of spice cake, which I made myself. They say it’s very flavourful.’ She laughed, before confessing awkwardly, ‘I love to feed people, no doubt it is a failing. I don’t know why, it just gives me pleasure.’ Suddenly guilty, she stammered, ‘Oh dear, I should not say such things …’
‘Indeed you should. It is good to feed people, above all the needy. Thank you for your precious offerings, Sister Adélaïde.’ Suddenly glad of this brief exchange, which had lightened his spirits before his gruelling journey, he added, ‘And you have my word, this will remain strictly between us – like a little secret that unites us over distance.’
Overjoyed, she bit her bottom lip and then, frightened, said hastily:
‘I must go back. I sense your path will be a long one, brother. Let it be safe from harm. My prayers will follow you. No, they will accompany you. Make a little place for me in yours.’
He leant towards her, planted a fraternal kiss on her anxious brow, and murmured:
‘Amen.’
Clairets Abbey, Perche, nightfall, May 1304
CLÉMENT felt confident. All was quiet. The nuns had retired to their cells after supper and compline.* Outside, a chorus of frogs croaked and the jays’ raucous complaints ricocheted from nest to nest. Further to his right, the tireless garden dormice tunnelled furiously between the stones with their claws. They were such cautious creatures that it was rare to catch a glimpse of their little black masked faces. The slightest unfamiliar presence would silence them. Clément delighted in the treasure trail nature left for those who knew how to watch and listen. He had uncovered most of its secrets, and its dangers too.
Cautiously, he stretched a numb leg out of his hiding place in the large hollowed stone the herbalist used for soaking the leaves, rhizomes, and berries she collected. The air was rank with the smell of rotten foliage. It would be dark within an hour. He had time to eat something and to reflect.
What was to become of them? The two of them that was, for Mathilde’s fate was of little concern to him. She was far too vain and foolish to worry about anything except her little breasts that were not budding as fast as she would like, her ribbons and hair combs. What would become of Agnès and him? A feeling of joy made his eyes brim with tears, for there were two of them, he was not alone. The Dame de Souarcy would never forsake him, even at risk to her own life. The certain knowledge that it was true wrenched his heart.
Crouching unseen behind the door to the main hall, he had witnessed the gruelling evening to which her half-brother had subjected her the day before. As usual she had outwitted him. And yet the following day, just after the scoundrel had left, while they were doing their round of the outbuildings, he had sensed her uncertainty and understood her fears: how far was Eudes prepared to go? What would he stop at?
The answer to the second question was obvious and Agnès knew it as well as Clément. He would stop at fear, when he came face to face with a beast more ferocious than he.
They were so alone, so vulnerable. They had no beast to champion them, to come to their aid. For months now the child had struggled with his despair. He must find a way out, a solution. He cursed his youth and his physical frailty. He cursed the truth of his origins, which he was forced to conceal for both their sakes. Agnès had explained this to him as soon as she could, and he knew her fears were well founded.
Knowledge was a weapon, Agnès had explained, especially when confronted with an ignorant boor like Eudes. Knowledge. It was passed on, to some extent, by the schoolmistresses at Clairets. And so, two years earlier, his lady had allowed him to attend the few classes open to children of all ages from the rich burgher families and gentry from the surrounding countryside. These offered him scant intellectual nourishment since, thanks to Agnès, he had long ago learnt to read and write in French and Latin. He had vainly hoped he might learn about the sciences, about life in distant lands. In reality, most of the time was spent on the study of the Gospels and learning by rote the words of worthy Latin scholars such as Cicero, Suetonius and Seneca. Added to these limitations was the terror the schoolmistress,22 Emma de Pathus, inspired in them all. Her permanent sullenness and readiness to raise her hand was enough to strike fear into the hearts of her young charges.
In the end, it mattered little. The goodly Bernardines were unstinting in their efforts, zealously caring for some, educating others, settling discords, calming hostilities, accompanying the dying. Unlike some of the other orders, they could not be accused of indifference towards the world outside the abbey, or of profiting from the misfortunes of humble folk. It mattered little because Clément had learnt so many things. Each seed of knowledge sprouted another. Each new key to understanding he forged unlocked a bigger door than the last. He had also learnt not to ask questions the sisters were unable to answer, for he realised that his curiosity, which initially rewarded their pains, ended by perplexing and then troubling them. In truth it mattered little because he had become convinced that the abbey contained an intriguing mystery.
Why had he slipped behind the pillar? He had been waiting for the Latin mistress. Was it instinct? Or was it the strange behaviour of the figure in white? The Abbess had looked around furtively before hurriedly locking the small postern door she had just emerged from, and then darted down the corridor, like a thief.
A quick, discreet enquiry left him none the wiser. No one seemed to know where that door led. What was in the room on the other side? Was it a secret cell for some important prisoner? Perhaps it was a torture chamber? The child’s fertile imagination ran away with him until he decided to solve the mystery himself. A roughly drawn map of the central part of the abbey helped him to determine that if there were a secret chamber it must be quite small, unless it contained a window – one of the ones that gave onto the interior garden that ran alongside the scriptorium and the dormitories. And if his modest topographical plan was at all accurate it must be in the middle of the Abbess’s chambers and study.
He had been burning with curiosity and impatience ever since. He had given a great deal of thought to the problem of how to remain within the abbey enclosure in order to pursue his secret inquiry and test his theories. In the end one solution imposed itself: the herbarium adjacent to the medicinal garden would give him shelter for a few hours while he waited for nightfall.
The full moon that night was Clément’s unwitting accomplice. He left the herbarium, moving silent as a ghost and blending in to the outer wall of the dormitory. He passed beneath the scriptorium windows, taller and broader than the rest in order to allow the copyists as much light as possible. He continued alongside the smaller windows of the steam room, the only part of the abbey that was heated in winter, and the place where the sick were tended and the ink stored overnight so it wouldn’t freeze. Only a couple more yards to go. The young boy was breathless with anxiety, wondering what explanation he might give for being there in the middle of the night if he were discovered, hardly daring to imagine the ensuing punishment. He slipped below the two small windows in the Abbess’s study and below the two air vents cut into the stone wall of the circular room in her chamber containing the garderobe. The mystery chamber should be located somewhere between these two rooms. Clément retraced his steps and measured the distance in paces between Éleusie de Beaufort’s chamber and her study. He estimated about twelve yards. Abbess or not, a nun’s cell could not be that wide or spacious. The secret chamber, then, though much bigger than he had first calculated, must be windowless. The thought sent a shiver of fear and excitement down his spine. What if the room was an inquisitorial chamber? What if he discovered signs of torture there? No. There was no such thing as a female Inquisitor. He went back over the same